Rose State College Cybersecurity expert Ken Dewey said the recent attacks on the White House, Pentagon and other sites highlight a growing problem that the government is rushing to fix though educating “cyber fighters” from programs such as the one at Rose.

“It’s a problem that is going to continue,” Dewey said. “Whether it’s these attacks they say are coming from North Korea, or others, they are going to continue to happen. Today they are attacking the White House but they can just as easily attack your home computer.”

Dewey said that by using “bot-nets”, or a network of computers that are being secretly controlled by hackers via the Internet, they can mass thousands of zombie computers to attack a website and cause it to shut down.

“They can even use your home computer to attack the White House,” Dewey said.

At Rose State College, Dewy heads the only cybersecurity educational program in the country at a community college that is certified at all six levels of government training for cybersecurity. Dewey said his program is being partially funded by the National Science Foundation so that students demonstrating financial need can take classes for free — but even so, the government is having trouble filling all the slots.

“There is a very high demand for this occupation and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime soon,” Dewey said. “I’ve even got more openings for fall in the free program.”

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